108586-why-im-not-quitting-wildstar-page-2
Page 1, Page 2 Content See, that's what I'm talking about. As has been said by pretty much everyone, RNG isn't difficult. | |} ---- You're missing the point here, which is that if Carbine is not on a survivable path with Wildstar right now (based on the numbers they can see and we can't), they have no choice but to change, because to stay the course is to accept that their product is as good as dead. This doesn't mean that changing it will ensure survival, because it won't. But it's better than certain doom. It's a chance. And when it comes to changes they can make that might work, nerfing is tops on the list. There's no guarantee, of course. It might even make things worse as the hardcores huff off. But if Wildstar is dying anyway, they have no choice except to change, or lie down and say goodbye to this labor of love. Now, of course, this is assuming that the game is, in fact, in trouble right now in terms of the number of subs and the trends of subs (Increasing? Decreasing? If decreasing, is the rate at least slowing? Or is it showing no signs of slowing?) If the game is not in trouble, it would be an excellent move for the dev team and/or NCSoft to release a statement saying they are happy with Wildstar's numbers and see no need to make real changes, only to debug, fine-tune, and continue to develop content at the same difficulty level for their loyal fans. But this is not what we are hearing. We are hearing "Attunements now bronze not silver," "Starter dungeons coming", and so on. That's a giant blaring klaxon if you pay attention. The hardcore thing is not working. That's not to say the casual thing will definitely work -- particularly after alienating a lot of the casual base with all the "We don't want no one here who's not willing to WORK to succeed at our game!" jibber jabber. But I'll repeat what I said above: it may come down to possibly living on Casual Street, or certainly dying on Hardcore Hill. That's it. I know you would probably prefer that they die on Hardcore Hill, and who knows, maybe they would too. But a lot more is riding on this for the devs than for you. This is their livelihood. If Carbine closes doors, they have to find jobs elsewhere, and video game dev jobs are not in generous supply. They have to uproot their families, sell the house, start over again, if they can. It's pretty easy for you to say "DIE ON HARDCORE HILL!"....but you're not the one who pays the piper if they choose that path. If they nerf the game to keep the doors open, are you going to punish them for choosing that? Are you just going to stop playing because the game isn't what you want any more? If you do the latter, what makes you actually different from a casual, anyway? We all want what we want in a game. If Carbine doesn't provide what enough people want, Carbine can change or die. They know this, and you should too. | |} ---- I absolutely don't believe your summation, though; you assume facts not in evidence. Who exactly stopped playing this game because it's hard? Who would come back if it's easy to replace the people who leave because it's easy? You've ignored all the criticism the game has gotten so far saying that the problem is RNG. It's said so much you'd think it's a religious chant. People want to be rewarded for clearing content I am directly and objectively saying that there is no evidence there are people waiting in the wings to come if the difficulty is reduced. None. I don't know and haven't met any. If the gearing is fixed I've heard people will come back. Server merges, people say they'll come back. When PVP isn't broken, I hear that, too. I can't remember, in all my time here, ever hearing someone say, "When your raiding is easy, I'll come back." And I hear a lot of criticism on here. You're elaborating fallacy on the back of an assumption on which there is no evidence nor logic. Will I leave if it gets nerfed? Probably. What makes me different from a "casual"? Nothing, I play a few hours a day on the days I can play. I am a casual, one that's completed attunement and loves the game precisely as it is. You don't need to foreswear showering to succeed in this game, contrary to popular belief. But I complained, for years, that there wasn't a game trying to be difficult. It's what I missed and what I wanted. Wildstar is the only game that has that. If it doesn't, the question becomes what makes it different from any other game? And is that enough to keep me from going to another game? Right now, what keeps me playing, what I love the most, is the thrill of the combat. Knowing that a lapse in concentration can get me killed, even for a few seconds. It's refreshing after sharing interrupts between myself and the MT during a partially pugged heroic Garrosh and winning comfortably. I came to this game specifically because it wasn't going to patronize me. That's assuming they'll get people back to replace their "hardcore" base, and there's no evidence of that. There is nothing anywhere saying people will come back to play with the game as it is if the difficulty is nerfed. People don't want to run easier dungeons for the same lack of rewards, they want to run dungeons as hard as they are for better rewards. That's the thrust of 90% of the people leaving. So to say it's first on the list of possible population attractors is absolutely wrong. All the evidence points to that being wrong. All the quitting threads say that's wrong. All the people who aren't quitting say that's wrong. There is no one saying they will quit if the game's not easier except some hypothetical group of magical players who are just waiting to jump out of other games to play Wildstar if it were just a little easier. And, I'm sorry, you're wrong. This game gets complained about for its RNG and grind, not its difficulty. Difficulty is constantly called out as one of its strengths. | |} ---- ---- ---- But surely you can see that this is essentially the same thing as someone leaving because it's too hard. He left because it's too hard for others.. | |} ---- Yeah, I'm one of those weird people who wants to reduce the RNG, but also to do a whole raft of PVE changes to make people want to run content all the time. I had a pretty good thread on the topic of using Elder Gems, crafting, and tokens to make a new and better system. But I'm completely against the idea of making content easier. But yeah, gear pieces dropping that are useless due to the gear stats or not having perfect slots? Yeah, we could do away with that. That ain't hard. | |} ---- So many here confuse timesink/tedium with difficulty that it's just sickening. | |} ---- No, he left because he's a bit of a leetist. -.o If after a month, you're mad because people pugging vet dungeons can't one-way clear the dungeon, you just aren't playing with realistic expectations. Hard content is hard. Also, I never played with him (he was on Stormtalon), so I have no idea whether other people were the problem, if you get my drift. Poor healers in this game having to keep up the first month with people who didn't know how to catch the green. | |} ---- Er...what? You don't think the large drop in player count is due to the difficulty? It absolutely is. Things like long grinds, difficult attunements, RNG on items so you have to get them over and over and over again hoping for exactly the right set of rune slots on THIS one....that's what difficulty is, in an MMO. Doing things on a timer? Difficult. I'm really curious as to what you think "real difficulty" is, if it's not all these things put together. What's "real difficulty" here? Aiming a telegraph? Interrupting on time? Those are not difficult. What I'm hearing here is me saying, "The difficulty is the issue," and you say, "No, it's the RNG and the grind!" and I say, "Yeah -- that's what I said. The difficulty. How difficult it is to get anywhere." So I think at this point I need you to say what you think Wildstar's "difficulty" is that the MMO community wants so badly? | |} ---- I admit, your posts make me hopeful. I am never going to be upset if they fix the game and leave difficulty alone; as I said, I like the difficulty. If you are right, and I hope you are as I DO agree with your carrot ideas, then it's just good news. And yeah, those leet players can be quarrelsome. | |} ---- The difficulty is logged directly into how hard it is to get in and out of those telegraphs. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Until you realize that the best 40 man raid in the world is through one boss, and they were attuned very quickly. Don't get me wrong, this game's actual gameplay is HARD. Extremely hard. Considering in most games you can hold conversations with other people and fight without looking at the screen, momentary lapses in concentration and panicking will get you killed just leveling in this game. And leveling is the easy part. Veteran dungeons are brutal affairs that have groups wiping over and over trying to clear Skullcano. Making it so that you aren't getting random, unusable skills on your gear isn't a difficulty nerf. It isn't "hard" to get the right gear at the end of your run. I don't see why anyone would think it would be "hard" to do that. What makes you think RNG is the basis for this game's difficulty curve? It's because your entire group/raid has to be on the same page or you die. If you aren't making it easy for the healer to heal you, you die. If the healer can't move and keep people in view or hit what they're aiming at, you die. If the tank can't mitigate damage, keep the boss aimed correctly, and work like a DPS even while he/she is doing that, you die. If you lose too many people to handle interrupt armor (or usually even one or two people), you die. If anyone handles a mechanic wrong and wipes out a quarter of your raid because he went left for a split second rather than going right, you die. Yeah, this game isn't coddling you. But the RNG on all stats and slots of gear making pieces that drop for you almost universally useless? That's not hard. That annoys you after the hard part is over. | |} ---- Yeah, Carbine's aware of this stuff. You should check out last week's Nexus Report. They're implementing systems to deal with the gear issues because they know people, even active players, are just logging in for raid times or for EG cap. Which isn't the way they want it; they want people playing all the time. There's just a dearth of reasons to do that since everything's random and the currency caps. So why keep running after you hit cap if you can just buy your way into decent gear a lot faster than you'll grind it out of dungeons? So the queues empty out, guilds grind gold rather than gear, the cities are empty anyway due to housing, and so on. It's really a suburban game. They need reasons to get people downtown and enjoying the night life. In game terms, that means they need people to tie their success to playtime in a way, not just solely to luck. | |} ---- I truly hope you feel like this in 3 months, I doubt you will. <-- quote fail! lol | |} ----